The campaign to put a Constitutional Convention ballot measure on the November ballot has come to end. Backers say they have run out of money.

“The challenge has been that the high level of citizen interest did not match the financial commitment,” said Jim Wunderman, president and CEO of the Bay Area Council, the chief organizer of the campaign. “As a result, we have to press the pause button.”

Repair California was gathering signatures for two ballot measures that would have convened a Constitutional Convention and charged its members with rewriting the way the state governs itself.

The group needed nearly 2 million signatures by mid-April in order to qualify the measures for the November ballot.

Wunderman, whose members at the Bay Area Council pledged $2 million to the effort, pointed to the poor economy.

Campaign manager Clint Reilly estimated it would cost as much as $4 million to gather the signatures but they had only raised $1 million.

“We were not even close,” Reilly said during a press conference this morning in San Francisco.

How appropriate that our state is in such political disrepair that “Repair California” can’t get on the ballot due to lack of money. The only initiatives that get on the ballot and succeed are those that are sponsored by self-serving, deep-pocketed interest groups who manage to persuade ill-informed voters that the ballot measure is good for the state. “Good government” doesn’t have moneyed sponsors. Corruption does.

Karen Cohen

“…the high level of citizen interest did not match the financial commitment,” said Jim Wunderman, president and CEO of the Bay Area Council.

Just proves we don’t have a democracy. If we could rely on government to take up the charge for reforming Calif., at least we’d have a republic. I guess we don’t have either. Dollars rule.

http://deleted Edi Birsan

When you think about the money that is needed to get an initiative on the ballot is enough to make you sick. At the same time considering the state of things, petition signing employment is a growth industry these days.